And those were just the Polish villages (there were many more in the USA, but that is another floor).

Some of the above are because I am expanding the search for records to surrounding parishes. That is called a proximity/circle search. As it turned out, the proximity also included nearby parishes where affiliated families said they were from. So I was looking for GAWLIK in Opatowiec and GRONEK in Stopnica/Olesnica. I always checked for ELIJASZ/LESZCZYŃSKI/WLECIAŁOWSKI in all villages. I was disappointed that I did not find KĘDZIERSKI in Tumlin.

I had prepared for some books (and/or maps) too. Sadly, many of these items were not located in the library and my three levels of assistants all failed to find them or even to explain why they could not be found:

943.8 E7sh (Malopolska cadastral. This was a high priority, so it was disappointing not to be able to locate these).

943.84 R2e (a register of Landowners — also not locatable).

A couple of books I did find, were a disappointment because they did not contain any of my family. C‘est la vie — that too is a part of the research. All told I had 10 spreadsheet pages of Family History Catatlog Items! That may seem like a lot; But it is always better to be over prepared because as you see some items cannot be located, some are dead-ends, and some quickly show they do not contain what you are looking for after all. Being under prepared is just a time waster, but they do have PCs available to do catalog look-ups — so it is not a show stopper.

I dutifully check them off, as I use them and some times I note my findings (or lack there of).

Future Research

Next time I will have to search more thoroughly through Beszowa and exhaustively too [for Paluch]. I will also search Dobrowoda parish too [for Major]. I will have to dedicate a lot of time to Swinary too [for Elijasz, Leszczynski, Kordos, etc.] and also Szczucin.

I will have to find a way to get to Buffalo and find my great-uncle Franciszek Leszczynski’s records and hopefully his brother Jan (aka John) Leszczynski too.

I of course need to get to Poland and visit the actual archives and parishes of my ancestors to see those records that have not yet been microfilmed — I need to write down this research plan. I already know where the civil and diocesan archives are and of course the parishes themselves. I will need an abundance of time there to get around the language and customs and the learning curve of using these resources.